The peacocks are stalking me!

I was at work this weekend, and I swear that there were peacocks everywhere I turned. It's as if mythology was following me and reminding me of Juno placing Argos' eyes on the feathers of her bird. I found the first when I was reorganizing the candles, and the paintings were right there on the wall to the left when I turned my head! The other picture was hanging in the women's bathroom, and I found the last peacock when I was color-coordinating the scarfs. It was the strangest thing; I couldn't ignore it, so I took pictures of each incident. Mythology really is everywhere, if we are open to seeing it.

                   Peacock on the side of a candle box                           Paintings of peacocks

                 Peacock on a scarf                                                           Another picture of a peacock

Learning to be a mythological detective

Before talking with Dr. Sexson yesterday, I had misplaced the fact that our blog is for the main purpose of writing about our findings of mythology in our daily lives. Up to this point, I haven't seen much in my life pertaining to myth, but now I am reconsidering. I now think that I just wasn't open to seeing the mythological clues.

Last night, I was going over all the notes from class and researching what I couldn't remember, when I came across something that I hadn't seen since in eight years. I looked up "memory palaces" and along with some images of old architecture popped up a painting that I instantly recognized.

      The Persistence of Memory       Artist: Salvador Dali

In 8th grade art class, our assignment was to pick an oil painting and paint an exact replica to the best of our ability, also downsized on a 4 by 6 inch card. I chose this piece because of the melting clocks; I thought they were very cool and hadn't seen anything like it before. When I saw this picture last night, it brought me back to the 8th grade with all of my memories. So this painting contributes to the mythology of my life, almost as if it was kept in a "memory palace" deep in my mind, as I'm sure this painting held meaning for the artist about his life and mythology. 

Initiation with pain and suffering

In class on Wednesday, Professor Sexson assigned us to find an initiation myth with pain and suffering involved to present to the class. I personally cannot stand pain and suffering when I read about it, or see it. There are movies that have gore and war, and I love them! But once you step into the realm of torture and suffering, that is the material I can do without. This is why I have never seen the Saw movies! Anyway, this assignment reminded me of two things: a movie that I have seen, and also a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The movie is Seven starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. This is the only pain and suffering movie I like and it is definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it, and worth owning. In the movie, there are two homicide detectives investigating murders that correspond to the seven deadly sins. The initiation myth assignment reminded me of this movie due to the sadistic nature of the killings. One man is forced to literally eat himself to death, representing gluttony. Another is a prostitute, forced to be brutally raped by a knife, representing lust. I won't give anything else away for those who haven't seen it, but it only becomes more painful and torturous from there.

After remembering this movie, the lust killing had me thinking about the story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela (on page 153). Not the same situation, but similar in the ability to shock me with it's suffering. In this story, Tereus marries Procne, becoming the tyrant of Thrace and they bear a child Itys. Soon after, Procne pleaded with Tereus to bring her sister, Philomela to Thrace so she could visit her. Tereus did this, but instead hauled her to a cabin in the forest and raped her. Afterwords, Philomela told him, "you shall find just payment for your crimes, I'll tell the world how you have ravished me." To this, she prepared for death, but instead he cut off her tongue and had her imprisoned to the cabin. Little did he know that she weaved her story on the loom and sent it to her sister. Procne enraged, set free her sister, and together for revenge, killed Itys and fed him to Tereus. I didn't go into the painful details here, but when I read this story, my jaw literally dropped in horror. I have a feeling that this will happen again in class on presentation day.

Tereus cutting off Philomela's tongue.

Comparing creation myths

I thought my creation myth was so cool when I found it, and then I heard some of the presentations in class. The Salish creation myth was the first one I read about, so I didn't really explore through any other ones. My creation myth can be classified as creation ex nihilo, or creation through thought or word. There was some clay involved, as well. I liked the Salish creation myth very much, but I really enjoyed the creation myths with earth diver and the cosmic eggs. I thought those were really interesting, and even though there were many presentations with those common classifications, every myth brought its own uniqueness to the picture. Although unique, I found the dismemberment creation myths disturbing. I think that is personal taste though.

Salish Creation Myth

Old Man in the sky created the world. Then he drained all the water off the earth and crowded it into the big salt holes now called the oceans. The land became dry except for the lakes and rivers. Old Man Coyote became lonely and went up to the sky to talk. He was so unhappy that he was crying. Old Man in the sky questioned him.

"Why are you so unhappy? Have I not made enough land for you to run around on? Are not Chief Beaver, Chief Otter, Chief Bear, and Chief Buffalo on the land to keep you company?"

Old Man Coyote cried more to this. Old Man in the sky became cross and scolded him. "Foolish Old Man Coyote, you must not drop so much water onto the land. I have worked many days to dry it. Soon you will have it all covered with water again. What is the trouble you are having? What more do you want?"

"I am very lonely because I have no one to talk to," he replied. "Chief Beaver, Chief Otter, Chief Bear, and Chief Buffalo are too busy with their families. I want people of my own to watch over."

"Then stop this crying," said Old Man in the sky. "If you stop annoying me with your visits, I will make people for you. Take this parfleche. It is a bag made of rawhide. Take it to a mountain filled with red earth and fill the bag to bring back to me."

Old Man Coyote took the bag and traveled many days and nights. At last he found a mountain with much red soil.  He filled the parfleche, but was weary from the long journey and decided to sleep for a while. "When I waken, I will run swiftly back to Old Man in the sky."

After a while, Mountain Sheep came along. He saw the bag and looked to see what was inside. "The poor fool has come a long distance to get such a big load of red soil," he said to himself. "I do not know what he wants it for, but I think I will mess with him." Mountain Sheep dumped all of the red earth out and filled the lower half of the bag with white soil, and the upper part with red soil.  Then laughing heartily, he ran to his hiding place.

Soon Old Man Coyote woke up. He tied the top of the bag and hurried to Old Man in the sky. When he arrived to the sky, it was nighttime. It was so dark that the two of them could not see the soil in the parfleche. Old Man in the sky took the dirt and said, "I will make this soil into the forms of two men and two women."

He did not see that half of the soil was red and the other white. Then he said to Old Man Coyote, "Take these people down to land. They are yours. So do not come up here anymore." Then he finished shaping the two men and women in the darkness.

Old Man Coyote put them in parfleche and carried them down to land. In the morning, he put breath into them. He was surprised to see that one pair was red and one pair was white. "Now I know that Mountain Sheep came while I was asleep. I cannot keep these two colors together." He carried the white ones to land by a big salt hole. The red ones he kept in his land so he could talk with them. That is how the Indians and white people came to the earth.